


Together Again

by zeldadestry



Category: My So-Called Life
Genre: Community: 100_women, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-01-01
Updated: 2006-01-01
Packaged: 2017-10-10 13:19:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/100216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zeldadestry/pseuds/zeldadestry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>that ole heart is meant to be broken</p>
            </blockquote>





	Together Again

**Author's Note:**

> Written for prompt 001, 'Beginnings', for 100_women Fanfic Challenge

Rayanne's only been in New York for three days, but she already loves it, feels like it's where she belongs.

Rickie's apartment is a one-bedroom, so she'll be staying on the couch in the living room until they find a new place. Rickie, best friend in the world that he is, has made her feel so wanted, and she is so glad they are together again that she is giddy with it and rushes to the door to throw herself at him and snuggle him and kiss him whenever she hears his key in the lock.

There are pictures on the fridge. There's a picture of Rayanne and Rickie graduating from high school, and a picture of Rickie's mom holding him when he was just a little baby with the all-time cutest pudgy cheeks, and a picture of Mr. Katimski, and one of Delia Fisher and Brian Krakow with their arms around each other, because they actually ended up going to the same college and getting together there, those crazy, lucky dorks, and pictures of Rickie with friends Rayanne hasn't yet met but hopes to soon, and then there's the one.

And Angela looks so different. It's not the hair, which is long and wavy and blonde, it's not the make-up, the eyes smudged round with kohl, it's not the slinky, low-cut dress, it's none of that. It's just the expression in her eyes, the way she holds her body; she's all sexy, now. She was sexy before, too, but she didn't know it, she didn't know how it made people feel when she locked her eyes on them, and her eyes always had a question in them because she wanted and wanted but she didn't know what it meant.

She knows now, Rayanne can see it. She's different and she's grown-up and Rayanne keeps wandering back to the fridge and standing in front of it and staring because she's hurt by this realization that the Angela she knew is gone. This is a different Angela and Rayanne feels like she's been standing still, and everyone else has run past her, and if she didn't have Rickie, she would feel totally alone.

She does feel totally alone, but it's not Rickie's fault and she loves Rickie, and she'll just, she'll just feel better once they have their place and she gets a job and finds a band to sing with, or maybe she'll put together her own show, because she would kick ass at that. She would be a fucking amazing like, cabaret singer, or something. Yeah, something like that, like a one-woman show. Rickie could totally help her with that, he knows tons of people. She does a little twirl away from the kitchen, gets herself the hell away from the apartment, buys a pineapple Popsicle from the bodega on the corner and wanders up the block, eyes squinting in the bright sunlight, exploring her new home.

"Hey, Rickie," she says that night as they're chowing down on take-out Chinese, and Rickie's freaking out because he hasn't finished memorizing his lines, "Rickie!"

"What?"

"Do you think Angela might visit sometime?"

He hasn't been looking at her; he's been looking at his script, even while he shovels food in his mouth, but when she says that, he raises his eyes, panicked. "Maybe," he says, in his too-chipper 'oh my god please do not let Rayanne get so disappointed and depressed that she goes out and gets wasted over this' voice.

"Come on, you know she wants to see you in the play, you big, big star."

He looks away again, and Rayanne's heart clenches, like it always did whenever she used to realize Rickie and Angela had a friendship that was apart from her, that they shared different parts of themselves with each other than they did with her. "She knows about the play."

"She does?" Her voice is lower, now, sullen, like maybe she's going to freak out, because she can't stand the idea that they like talked about this? Angela knows, or something, that Rayanne's living here now, and that means she's going to stay away because she still hates Rayanne that much, still? "Rickie, don't be stupid, she has to come see it!"

"Maybe," he says again, in his too-bright 'everything's ok, everything's fine, don't take it out on me, please don't take it out on me' voice, which Rayanne knows has a lot more to do with the shit he's had to put up with from his family than from anything she ever did. All the same, it makes her feel kind of guilty, makes her realize she's being selfish.

She picks up the dirty dishes, because they're more or less finished, now, and taking them over to the sink, she says, "I'll help you run your lines."

"That'd be great," Rickie says, obviously grateful, and why the hell didn't she offer before? She's such an idiot sometimes. Doing the dishes and throwing out the trash seems like too small a thing for how she feels, too small a gift for Rickie, for what he means to her, but it's all there is for right now. She'll clean up and help him run his lines, and that will have to be enough, for now.

Over the next few days, she forces herself to avoid the picture of Angela. She has to, man, it's fricking self-preservation, because every time she looks at that photo, every time she sees that face she does and doesn't recognize, sees those eyes she knows and doesn't know, it's like a fucking knife to the heart, and she is not just being a melodramatic diva about it, it really does fricking hurt. It does, it just does.

Maybe she'll try acting again, like Rickie is now, like she was, back then, when she played Emily in 'Our Town'. She signs up for a class, tears down a flier she sees at the coffee shop announcing an audition for an NYU student film.

"I talked to Angela," Rickie says a week or so later, in a much better mood, now that he's got his lines down cold, that rehearsals have started and are going well. "I think she's going to come down for opening weekend."

"Ok," Rayanne says, shrugging, like it's no big deal, and she is a huge big faker, because yes, she has thought about it, like, every hour since she first talked to Rickie, "cool."

"I think she wants to see you again," Rickie says, gentle, hesitant, and Rayanne understands what he's trying to tell her, that she should take it easy and stay calm, that she shouldn't get her hopes up.

Yeah, she knows, she knows, but, like anyone else whose heart is easily broken, like Angela was, back then, perhaps the one thing they truly had in common, must still have in common, no matter how much Angela has changed, both their hearts must want and break and go right back to wanting again, yes, just like that, her heart leaps with the possibilities of it, of Angela, of she and Angela and Rickie, of she and Angela, together, together again.


End file.
